AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
“Get down from there. Now,” Herne growled, his gruff voice skating down my spine in a way that was both wholly inappropriate and terribly exciting. “You can’t hide from me.”
“I definitely can,” I shouted back, rolling my eyes and stretching my neck. My shoulders, back, and abs ached from two days of hard riding, and then made worse by climbing this tree to escape Herne, but I could go a little longer before I absolutely had to climb down. I cursed my luck at not having the speed or abilities to evade him, and the aching in my shoulder blades was growing with every second I stayed up in the damn tree.
“Get. Down. Here. Now,” Herne roared, his boom shaking the tree in which I had perched so much that I had to hug the trunk for balance. “Now, Cerridwen, or so help me—”
“Fine,” I sighed, looking down to check my footing and slowly lowering myself to the forest floor, where Herne stood like an angry version of Cernunnos himself, arms crossed and broad chest heaving, his antlered horns the only difference from those of the God of the Wild.
He snarled as I descended, his impatience and fury making my blood pump with adrenaline for probably all the wrong reasons. Gods, he was so sexy when he was angry and unamused by my antics. I pushed the thought away, frustration cooling my heated blood.
“I’m here,” I said, dropping from the lowest branch and gesturing to myself to prove that I was in one piece. “I’m totally fine. No harm came to me. And I am back in time, just as my note said I would be.”
“You have some fucking nerve,” Herne growled, looming over me by almost two full feet as he strode toward me. “You cannot just steal my horse and leave my Court days before you come into your power. Anything could have fucking happened when your power emerged!”
“But I’m back, and it didn’t, and no one died,” I said, trying to speak calmly, mostly because I knew that would annoy him. Herne was the ‘shout first, ask questions later’ type, and he hated it when I refused to take the bait and argue back. “I assume Carnon was completely fine while I was gone?”
“He’s been terrifying us all by swinging through the trees like a monkey and nearly falling to his death a hundred times, but yes.” Herne narrowed his eyes at me, anger still seething in their owl-like depths. He had yellow eyes, like a night-seeing bird of prey, and I felt them boring into me as he stared me down. “Why, in the names of all the gods, did you think that was a good idea?”
“I wasn’t thinking so much as just wanting to go,” I replied coolly, stepping around him and heading back toward the Sacred City, which was still several miles from where he found me. The horse had run off, and I was not looking forward to the long hike back, or the argument I’d face for my recklessness. “If you had agreed to let me golastspring, then I wouldn’t have felt the need to run off.”
“We celebrate Beltanehere,” Herne growled. There was really no other good word to describe what his voice did most of the time. “In three days, Cerridwen. There isnogood reason for you to run off to Oneiros to see a fucking maypole or flowers in the streets.”
“I’m not a child, Herne,” I sighed, stomping as loudly as I could as he trailed behind me a few feet. “We let Carnon go to Oneiros all the time. Why am I so different?”
“Because your brother is the future Demon King,” Herne rumbled, his anger waning a bit as we walked. While he was always quick to anger, he was usually quick to calm as well, although I don’t think in my years of knowing him I had ever really seen him completely calm. “And he is required to learn what will be expected of him one day. You are under no such expectation.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to see the city for myself,” I snapped, turning back to glare at him.
“You go with Carnon all the time,” Herne replied, rolling his eyes like I was being completely unreasonable.
I had known Herne as the Lord of Beasts for most of my life, and he had been there for us five years ago when our parents were brutally murdered. King Alaunus had charged Herne with keeping Carnon safe and training him to fight and lead until he reached maturity, and of course I had gone to be with my little brother. I was grateful for Herne’s care, for how he treated Carnon like a mix of an uncle and elder brother, and for his protection. But his protectiveness was starting to chafe, especially as I stopped seeing him as the Lord of our court and started seeing him as…well…more.
What had started as a girlish infatuation had become a full blown longing, and it didn’t help that Herne both saw and treated me more like a child sometimes than an equal. I had helped him raise Carnon, after all, and I thought I was quite attractive; my brown curly hair was soft and shiny, and my figure was quite curvy in all the places I knew males liked. But Herne never seemed to bat an eye, not in the way I wanted him to, at least.
“Going as Carnon’s babysitter is not the same thing as exploring the city,” I argued back, feeling a flush of both shame and fury creep up my cheeks. “I just wanted to explore on my own, is that so terrible?”
“It is when you steal my horse and go without telling me,” he said, catching up to me and grasping my arm to turn me toward him. “What did you think I’d do, Cerridwen? Thank you for the loss of the beast and the fifty years of my life you drained from me as I worried about you?”
“Awww, Herne,” I mocked, putting a hand over my heart. “You care. And here I thought your only concern was Carnon.” I rolled my eyes and turned away, only for Herne to turn me roughly back toward him. He pulled hard enough that I lost my balance and had to throw out my hands to catch myself on his warm, broad chest. He was, sadly, clothed in a tunic, and for a heartbeat I really wished he wasn’t.
“YouknowI care,” he growled, glaring down at me, his brown bristly beard quivering in anger. “Don’t youdaresuggest I care less about you than him.”
I was so surprised by this pronouncement, and so entranced by our nearness and his scent, woods and spice and something undefinably male, that I just gaped up at him, my heart pounding against my chest. His pounded just as loudly, and I saw something different flash across his features, just for a moment. Something heated. Herne growled again and released me, transforming into the huge, majestic stag, a form that he usually reserved for hunting and fighting.
“Get on,” he said, his voice sounding oddly muffled in his stag form. “We’re going home.”
“Asterra is my home,” I spat, climbing awkwardly onto his back and trying not to think about all of theotherways I would like to ride him.
Herne flinched under me, a tiny movement, but one I recognized, having known him so well for so long. I felt an immediate pang of regret at my words. Asterrahadbeen my home, but we had lived in the Sacred City of the Court of Beasts with Herne longer than Carnon had lived in Asterra, and I knew Herne felt personally responsible for us feeling like we belonged.
“I didn’t mean that,” I said quietly, tentatively resting a hand on his soft neck. In his stag form he was fully transformed, and his shaggy fur was so similar to his beard, I wondered if it would feel the same under my fingers.
“I know,” Herne grumbled, his head turning slightly so that one big yellow eye found my face. “Hold on tight.”
Chapter 2
“You’re back!” Carnon squealed, his arms wrapping around me in an enthusiastic hug. I hugged him back, noting with some chagrin that he would soon be as tall as me, and the days of boyish hugs were coming to a swift close. “Where did you go? Herne was SO mad! I climbed every tree in the city while you were gone, and Bronn taught me to fire a bow and arrow, and Herne said I’m almost ready for a real sword instead of a practice one!”
